2658 Fishes. 



shire and Huntingdonshire during three years, and I am sure that all 

 I saw were of the common species : besides myself, they could not 

 have escaped the notice of far more accomplished naturalists — such 

 as Mr. Jenyns — who have passed a great part of their lives in the fens. 

 Alas ! I hear Foulmire is now drained : the subject ought to be most 

 carefully searched into before it is too late. 



J. WOLLEY. 



Edinburgh, 

 November 30, 1849. 



Observations on Salmon, and Suggestions respecting the Regulation 

 of Salmon Fisheries. By the Rev. James Smith. 



In an extract in the ' Zoologist' (Zool. 2195) from Boccius, ' On 

 Fish in Rivers and Streams,' there occurs the following passage : — 

 " Salmon and grilse, when taken at the mouth of a river, are of dif- 

 ferent flesh and flavour to those taken up stream, the former being 

 firm, brittle of flesh, and of large flake ; but when taken in the latter 

 the flesh is weedy, thin of flake, and wanting in fat." 



It appears to me that this assertion is in terms far too general and 

 unqualified, and that it refers to a matter on which there is a very 

 common, but by no means an accurate, impression. The idea would 

 seem to be widely diffused, that, when caught at the mouth of a river, 

 and more especially still when procured from the sea, a salmon must 

 of necessity be of the finest quality, provided that the fish is captured 

 during that particular season when it is naturally in the highest con- 

 dition ; and, in like manner, there is an equally extended belief, that, 

 when obtained a considerable way up the river, its quality will, as a 

 matter of course, be very perceptibly inferior to what it would have 

 been had the same identical fish been taken either at the mouth of 

 the river or in the sea. Such, however, is by no means the result of 

 my own individual experience; and my opportunity has not been 

 small for making observation on this particular point. For many years 

 1 lived at the mouth of one of the Scottish salmon rivers, — the Dovern, 

 — where the fishing is assiduously prosecuted in the river itself as far 

 as a mile or two up its course, and where bag-nets are, also, regularly 

 set in the adjoining bay, into which the river falls. And of two sal- 

 mon, for example, taken in the sea at the same moment, from the 

 same place, and having exactly the same outward appearance, it is by 

 no means uncommon that the flesh of the one is pale, soft, destitute 



